The company was founded in May 2015 inBushwick, Brooklyn by James Belfer and Adam Belfer, viewing a perceived gap in the market for adult animation for digital and mobile audiences that they could fill.[3] The Studio would produce the animation for the documentary filmNUTS! in 2016, which won a Special Jury prize at theSundance Film Festival.[4] Later, the company would expand into making animated series releasing the web series likeDogs in A Park.[5] In 2018, the company would increase production making the showsHuman Kind Of andLiverspots and Astronots forFacebook Watch andAlan & Elle forIFC.[6][7][8] In 2019, the company would release its first feature, titledFilm Tux and Fanny.[9] More recently, Cartuna partnered withSyfy to produce shows for itsTZGZ block, specificallyScience! in 2019 andMagical Girl Friendship Squad in 2020,[10] along with the associated pilot series released the same year,Magical Girl Friendship Squad: Origins.[11] Cartuna would also be responsible for work onLoafy, a series of animated shorts which aired onComedy Central.[2][12]
In September 2020, in an interview, Kelsey Stephanides, creator ofMagical Girl Friendship Squad, argued that her show would have been "totally different" if another studio produced it.[1] Cartuna worked with over 100 artists on the series.[13] The animation was done onAdobe Animate, the backgrounds done inAdobe Photoshop, and character design done in both.[14] Five years earlier, while in school atNew York University, studyingMedia,Culture andCommunications, Stephanides, a fan of themagical girl genre, came up with the idea for the show and was convinced by Belfer, a professor at the same school,[a] to pitch it to Cartuna.[15] After that, production on the series began, meant to be a "short-form pitch to networks," and it was pitched around for years until 2019, whenSYFY picked it up, wanting to reboot it, polish it more, and have longer episodes, leading to the creation of the main show,Magical Girl Friendship Squad, itself.
Also in September 2020, Cartuna picked a new Senior-Vice President named Mike Flavin, who formerly worked atGunpowder & Sky, an independent studio owned byWarnerMedia. Belfer was quoted as saying that they were "doubling down" on development, adding that animation is a medium, rather than a genre, and noted Flavin's experience "from live-action development," allowing them to expandadult animation in the future.[16]
In November 2020 it was announced that Cartuna would be collaborating withDoing Things Media on aIGTV series titledOffice Fire.[2]
In 2025, Cartuna made their first all-rights acquisition with the titleDead Lover.[19] They had also acquired the upcoming anime filmTamala 2030: A Punk Cat in Dark withDeaf Crocodile.[20]
^Shepard, Keith."Dogs in a Park".Official website of Keith Shepard.Archived from the original on April 26, 2019. RetrievedOctober 23, 2020. This is the website of the co-creator of the series.
^Havens, Lyndsey (August 19, 2016)."DJ Mustard Shares Animated 'Don't Hurt Me' Video".Billboard.Archived from the original on September 22, 2020. RetrievedNovember 12, 2020.Brooklyn based animation company Cartuna produced the video, which was animated and directed by Tasmanian native Felix Colgrave.
